Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1887-04-22
SECRET SOCIETIES
THE SUBJECT OF DR.. TALMAGE'e
SERMON AT THE TABERNACLE.


sonry, Odd Fellowship, knights of
Labor, Greek Alphabet and Other So
cieties?''
BROOKLYN, April 17-The Rev. T. De
Witt Talmage, D. D., announced to his con-
gregation to-day that, as the Brooklyn taber-
nacle has been uncomfortably crowded for
many years, the trustees have purchased the
adjoining ground, on which great church,
prayer and Sunday school room will be
built, which ON Sabbath can be opened into
the main auditorium, thus giving room for
at least 600 more hearers at services Six
thousand people are crowded into the pres
ent building, 1850 of these in pews and
about 1900 seated in aisles and standing.
The improvement will add greatly to this
capacity.
The subject of DIR. Talmage's sermon to-day
was, "What is the moral effect of Free
Masonry, Odd Fellowship, Knights of Labor,
Greek Alphabet and other societies?" The
text was from Proverbs XIV, 9: "Dis-
cover not a secret to another DR.. Talmage
said:
1t appears that in Solomon's time as in all
subsequent periods of the world, there were
people too much disposed to tell all they knew.
1t was blab, blab, blab: physicians revealing
the case of their patients, lawyers exposing
the private affairs of their clients, neighbors
advertising the faults of the next door resi-
dent; pretended friends betraying conf
dences One-half of the trouble of every
community comes from the fact that SO many
people have not capacity to keep their
mouths shut. When I hear something dis
paraging of you my first duty is not to tell
you. But if tell you what somebody has
said against you, and then go out and tell
everybody else what 1 told you, and they go
out and tell others what I told them that
told you, and we all go out, some to hunt up
the originator of the story and others to hunt
it down, we shall get the whole community
talking about what you did do and what you
did not do, and there will be as many scalps
taken as though a band of Modocs had swept
but only one tongue, physiological sugges-
ton that we ought to hear good deal more
than we tell. Let us join conspiracy that
we will tell each other all the good and
nothing of the i'll, ard then there will not be
such awful need of sermons on Solomon's
words: Discover not secret to another"
oOlOlIOll ielel q WI 1olSC NolhSooiS I'll S1O.
In his earlier days he had very confused no.
tions about monogamy and polygamy, and
his multitudinous associates in the matri-
monial state kept him too well informed as to
what was going on in Jerusalem. They
gathered up all the privacies of the city and
poured them into his ear, and his family be-
came a Sorosis or female debating society
of 700, discussing day after day all the diff
o1,1ti hot husbands onI 1Siuo hot
employers and employees, between rulers and
subjects, until Solomon, in my text, depiores
volubility about affairs that do not belong
to us and extols the virtue of secretiveness
By the power of secret divulged, families,
churches. neighborhoods, nations fly apart.
By the power of a secret kept, great charities,
socialities, reformatory movements and
Christian enterprises may be advanced. Men
are gregarious-c in herds, fish in schools,
birds in focks, men in social circles. You
may.by the discharge of a gun scatter flock
of quails or by the plunge of the anchor send
apart tine denizens of the sea, but they will
gather themselves together again. If you by
some new power could break the associations
in which men now stand, they would again
adhere God meant it so. He has gathered
all the flowers and shrubs into associations.
You may plant one forget-me-not or hearts
ease alone, away off upon the hillside but ii
will soon hunt up some other forget-me-not or
heart's-ease Plants love company. You will
find them talking to each other in the dew. A
galaxy of stars is only a mutual life insurance
company. You sometimes see man with no
t-branchings of sympathy. His nature is
cold and hard, like ships mast ice glazed,
which the most agile sailor could never climb.
Others have thousand roots and thousand
branches Innumerable tendrils climb their
hearts and blossom all the way up, and the
fowls of heaven sing in the branches. In con-
sequence of this tendency we find men coming
together in tribes, in communities, in churches
in societies. Some gather together to cultivate
the arts, some to plan for the welfare of the
state, some to discuss religious themes, some
to l1indle their mirth, some to advance their
craft. So every active community is divided
in associations of artists, OF merchants, OF
bookbinders, of carpenters, of masons, Of
plasterers, of shipwrights, of plumbers Do
you cry out against it? Then you cry out
against tendency divinely implanted. Your
TRADES would accomplish 20 more than If you
should preach to busy ant hill or beehive a
long sermon against secret societies.
Here we find the oft-discussed question,
whether associations that do their work with
closed doors, admit their members by pass
words, and greet each other with secret grip
are right or wrong. I answer that it de-
ponds entirely on the nature of the object for
which they meet. Is it to pass the hours in
revelry wassail, blasphemy and obscene talk,
or to plot trouble to the state or to debauch
the innocent, then say, with an emphasis
that no man can mistake, No! But is the OBJ
ject the defense of the rights of any class
against oppression, the improvement of the
mind, the enlargement of the heart, the adj
vancement of art, the defense of the govern
| ment, the extirpation of crime, Or the kind
ling of pure-hearted sociality, then l say,
with Just as much emphasis, Yes
There is no need that we who plan for the
conquest of right over wrong should publish
to all the world our intentions. The general
of an army never sends to the opposing troops
information of the coming attack. Shall we
who have enlisted in the cause of God and
humanity, expose our plans to the enemy!
Mol we will in secret plot the ruin of all the
enterprises of Satan and his cohorts. When
they expect us by day we will call upon them
by night While they are strengthening their
left wing we will double up their right. BY a
plan of battle formed in secret conclave we
will come suddenly upon them, crying: "The
sword of the Lord and of Gideon" Secresy OF
plot and execution are wrong only when the
object and ends are nefarious. Every family
| is a secret society, every business firm and ev
ery banking and insurance institution Those
| men who have no capacity to keep q secret
are unfit for positions of trust apywhere